“How can you believe stuff like that?”
“When it’s all you’re told, you have to. And with Liz…you end up believing anything.”
“My parents didn’t leave me anything much,” he said. “They never got a chance.”
He’d already told me how they’d died. He was brought up mostly by his gran, is what I’d gathered. When he moved in here he brought hardly any stuff with him. Andy is someone who comes without baggage. Me, I’ve got baggage coming out of everywhere.
“But that means you’re rooted somewhere,” Andy said. “All this stuff is full of memories. It’s your life and it means you belong.”
I wasn’t convinced. “But without it, I could up sticks and go anywhere. Like Liz did. Like you could, anytime.”
“It’s easy to get rid of stuff. Just chuck it. That’s what charity shops are for. Get rid.”
He knew I couldn’t do that. Something ties me here. Not just waiting for my mam to come back.
I put away the box in her wardrobe. Among all her things. Wigs, roped beads and crusted, glittering fake jewellery. A selection of mandarin fingernails. “Oh...” I said. “You could guess from this lot that she’s a tranny. What self-respecting woman would have a wardrobe like this?”
He chuckled. “You have now, pet.”
“Hm. So I have.”
THREE
For years Mark Kelly had believed himself to be surrounded by people. His life was made too complex and problematic by a constant stream of relations and friends, and friends of friends. People crowded into his life and pressed their concerns upon him. He had grown up wanting to stand aloof, but always felt himself pulled right in.
His ex-wife Sam had a thought or two about that. “Crap. You love getting mixed up in it all. You’re just bloody nosy. You’re more interested in what’s going on with other people than you are in your own family.” This was one Saturday afternoon when he came to pick up his eight-year-old daughter Sally. Sally watched the familiar row go backwards and forwards. Nothing much changed for Sam and Mark. Mark was still living in the flat in Phoenix Court where they had all lived together. “You couldn’t bear to leave that street,” Sam jeered. “You think too much of sitting with all those old women and their tittle-tattle.”
Sam didn’t think much of the inhabitants of Phoenix Court. She thought herself a cut above. When Mark told her that, she flew off the handle. She told him he didn’t know what he was talking about. He should have wanted more, he should have provided better for his child and wife. He should have been more ambitious. Couldn’t he see it was driving her mad, living on that lousy council estate? Of course she wanted to be out and in a new Barratt home near Darlington. She lived in one now, with Bob, a policeman. Mark had to travel through Darlington on the bus to pick up and drop off Sally at weekends. On Sunday nights Sam would put their child in the bath and quiz her over what her father’s life was like now.
Now Mark was living with no one. For a while there had been a man living there with him. Richard, who had befriended Sally and whom Sally talked about a lot when she returned home to her mam. Sam would listen pursed-mouthed to this, and could barely restrain a crow of triumph when, one day, Sally announced that Dad’s friend Richard had returned to Leeds.
“Your little boyfriend’s gone then, has he, Mark?” Sam said this as she pushed her daughter’s arms into her anorak. Sally pulled free and put it on for herself.
“He wasn’t my boyfriend,” said Mark, glowering. He didn’t think his life was any of Sam’s business now. Whoever came and went into his life had nothing to do with her. He, after all, never asked about her dopey policeman, did he?
Sam gazed at him as he stood in the porchway of her new Barratt home. She was surprised by a surge of affection and physical desire for this man. It was the way the light came in through the porch and lit up the many shades of blue of his tattoos. His all-over markings shone in that light. They reminded Sam of their years together. There was no one on this planet with a body like Mark’s. “Are you OK then?” she asked in a more subdued tone. He nodded, and took Sally.
This exchange had been quite recent. Mark had lost his lodger in the small flat. Sam and her policeman were taking Sally to the in-laws for Christmas. Mark would be alone for much of the festive period. He couldn’t believe that his days would be empty of people. That wasn’t like his life at all. On Boxing Day he had resorted to visiting his mother-in-law Peggy, who still lived nearby. He took a present for her new child Iris, who was barely two and walking about all over the place. Peggy could see how down Mark was. But she was glad of a quiet time, herself. Christmas two years ago, when Sally had been kidnapped and they’d all gone running about like mad things, was a mite too busy for her liking. She let her tattooed boy go, and watched him walk down the garden path through the snow. She felt fond of him, and sad for him. He was meant for better things. Peggy wondered if Mark in his mid-thirties thought that he’d spoiled his potential.
He was glad of this party tonight. At one point he was going to throw one of his own
